In an opinion piece (which was originally published on GAMEbriefs), Nicholas Lovell takes the author of the recent SF Weekly expose on Zynga’s business practices (FarmVillains) to task for his tone. One passage in the article that really raised Lovell’s ire:

“At a time when traditional ‘console’ videogames -- the kind bought in a store and played on a computer or entertainment system such as a Sony PlayStation -- aspire to be classified as works of art, it might seem odd that such confections as FarmVille enjoy widespread attention and financial success. In 2007, for example, publisher 2K Games released a spellbinding console game, BioShock, in which players make difficult ethical decisions in an underwater city-state founded on the libertarian ideals of Ayn Rand.

Next to such immersing products, Zynga's games look cretinous.”

Lovell takes issue with this statement, calling it “snobbish arrogance” and follows it up with statistics on the popularity of Zynga’s games. After rolling out all those numbers, he says, “Gamers need to grow up.”

“So when will gamers stop sneering, stop hiding behind their bleating “but Farmville isn’t a game” and start realising that Zynga have done something that traditional games have never done.

They have made gaming something for everyone. Isn’t it time we applauded that?”

You can read the entire article at Gamasutra. The comments are also worth perusing.

Comments

Um, no, it is not. What you have done is taken an exclusive medium of entertainment and COMMERCIALIZED it. You have not broken ground on something amazing or breathtaking; you, Mr. Lovell, and your company have made something popular, not something unique. You've merely brought a quasi-MMORPG to Facebook, much like colonists brought new and interesting diseases to the Americas. In effect, you've merely tapped into a previously-unoccupied sector of the market. This does not mean your game is "good," it means that it is "popular."

And popularity, my dear Mr. Lovell, is a fleeting thing in modern markets. :)

The problem that Mr. Lovell was talking about is real in that casual games are often bashed on quality, which really isn't fair. Think of it in terms of books, Stephen King doesn't write literary masterpeices (and sometimes his pacing is too slow for a snail) but still is respectable in its medium, or that trashy romance novels are written for a specific purpose.

But frankly that wasn't what the article was about, it was about Zynga's practices. To then say that the entire is wrong due to that one point of opinion is ludicrous.

Also:"They have made gaming something for everyone. Isn’t it time we applauded that?”

Sure, buddy. We should all praise everything that is popular, because that is the only possible criterion something can be judged by. Thank you Stephanie Meyer for bringing vampires to the masses! Thank you Transformers for bringing giant robots to the masses! Thank you Taylor Swift for bringing country to the masses! I am unable to criticize your works because they are popular! Lucky you!

Both authors are guilty of bringing the casual gaming debate into a place it doesn't belong. This is supposed to be abount Zynga's terrible business practices, not about the effects of casual gaming on the more traditional audience.

oh suuuure, we can do that... OR we can blast this imoral company for it's disgusting buisness practices. Dont get me wrong, I'm all for more people getting into videogames, but we're talking about a game company that essentialy copied other developer's games and got away with it. I dont care WHAT the result is, you do NOT get away with plagarizing other people's work.

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Andrew Eisen: In other words, a hero is male because that's the default. A hero is female because of a gender-related reason.03/31/2015 - 5:32pm

Andrew Eisen: Her point is that "When archetypal fantasy heroes in games are overwhelmingly portrayed as men, it reinforces the idea that... women should be able to empathize with male characters but that men needn’t be able to identify with women’s stories."03/31/2015 - 5:30pm

Andrew Eisen: Daniel - She doesn't say that in any of the TvW videos and I doubt she's said elsewhere that all games with male protagonists are male power fantasies. Anyway, you seem to be conflating two different ideas.03/31/2015 - 5:30pm

Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm